The last time I visited The House was last summer, July 2101. It was to supposed to have opened the previous October, in time for His birthday, but the Gods and Goddesses, for some reason did not allow that to happen. Then we heard from the house (via e-mail - gotta love my brother who did all the communiucation back and forth) that the spring was THE time, THEN, about three months before our trip, we found out it was to open the end of JULY, TWO weeks AFTER we flew back to the "good ol" (AND that's said "tongue-in-cheek!!) USA! We were allowed to roam the grounds, and that's when I "borrowed" my infamous brick and found the quite interesting pottery shards I described on a previous thread. Someone responded (may have been you, can't remember) that they sounded as though they might have been from the Victorian era. If I knew how to put pictures on the computer, I'd share them with you guys. No one else I know of (excepting my dear brother, who I think puts up with it all more than anything else!) would understand.Walking the grounds was good enough, considering that's all we had. We did go to Rome, to #26 Piazza de Spagna and the Non-Catholic Cemetery, as it is called now, and both The Room and The Gravesite are both very peaceful, if one doesn't allow one's mind to wander and focus on Severn's letters and the horribleness (word?) of it all. The great thing about that house in Rome, is that the (marble?) steps leading to the second floor are original to the house, so naturally I had to stoop, touch, and kiss each one on the way up. Just think: to actually walk where he staggered (of course, my dear brother just had to point out that "he isn't directly in front of us, so there is no telling how many 'feet' you're kissing!"). However, considering how bizarre I must have looked, it WAS a very good thing only my brother was behind me. The floor tiles in HIS room are original as well (as is the fireplace where Severn cooked their few meals) as are the ceiling tiles. One of the floor tiles was completely loose, and I had to so resist the temptation . . . just kidding, about "lifting" the floor tile, not about it being loose!In those places, The House in Hampstead, The House in Rome: it sometimes has to be enough to allow myself the thought that at least I'm walking where He walked, touching what He may have touched, and breathing the air He breathed. . . but, it's only JUST enough.I'm wondering if this obsession is still "harmless". . . Why are we all so in love with a dead man? And I say "all" because surely it isn't JUST me???

"But if you will fully love me, though there may be some fire, 'twill not be more than we can bear when moistened and bedewed with Pleasures." JK to FB 08.07.1819

We were allowed to roam the grounds, and that's when I "borrowed" my infamous brick and found the quite interesting pottery shards I described on a previous thread. Someone responded (may have been you, can't remember) that they sounded as though they might have been from the Victorian era.

That was me.

If I knew how to put pictures on the computer, I'd share them with you guys.

You can do it like this- take photos via a digital camera or mobile phone. Connect the sim card to a computer using either a card reader or a USB cable ( they come with the camera or phone) and upload them to photobucket ( a free online photo site)- from photobucket you upload them to this forum.

Why are we all so in love with a dead man? And I say "all" because surely it isn't JUST me???

No, it isn't just you- and to answer why...he is special that's why- his poetry and soul are just magical.

John....you did not live to see-who we are because of what you left,what it is we are in what we make of you.Peter Sanson, 1995.

Speaking only for myself, I enjoy Keats in large part because he seems like a great friend. I completely understand why people (Brown and Reynolds--and Severn) acknowledged their friendship with Keats on their tombstones. All through his letters to his friends, Keats displays such empathy, humor, pathos, "awkward elegance", intelligence and personal honesty. . .it is hard not to be attracted to his character. By no means was he perfect, but I find that I am attracted to his imperfections . . . his searchings and windings and especially his courage in the quest after his true self.

I agree, of all the poets and writers I admire, Keats is the one I imagine I would have/could have actually been friends with - personality-wise. I wouldn't go so far as to kiss the ground where he walked though, that's a bit much for me That's idolatry, and Keats was no god, just a great poet and thinker, he wasn't superhuman, or larger than life, he was just one of us meatbags with a way with words; even Shakespeare, universally acknowledged as perhaps the greatest poet the world [or the English speaking one at least] has ever produced was just a man.

Ha! no, not from the future. . . just, unfortunately, the very-real, very-now (duh!) present. Credit that "typo" to my aforementioned lack of computer skills. AND, I even proofed the "cotton-pickin'" thing several times. What I meant, obviously, was 2010. I trust your comment was "said" in good-humoured fun, and not amazement at any stupidity you may imagine on my part!The comment on Keats being one of us, just better at words. He's more than that to me. He is a gift to us from whatever generating Spirit(s) any of us choose to believe in (or perhaps - rely upon). His soul is unique; he is not the same as the rest of us.This obsession is evolving and intensifying rapidly...must get off and go read some letters -- specifically #159 in my Hyder Rollin's edition: "The Vale of Soul-Making" (to George; to me?? [not really]) may be particularly important at this (emotional/mental) time.My "disease," I fear is terminal . . . (and no, I'm not being melodramatic)'bye

"But if you will fully love me, though there may be some fire, 'twill not be more than we can bear when moistened and bedewed with Pleasures." JK to FB 08.07.1819

Speaking only for myself, I enjoy Keats in large part because he seems like a great friend.

Perfect Malia!

I completely understand why people (Brown and Reynolds--and Severn) acknowledged their friendship with Keats on their tombstones. All through his letters to his friends, Keats displays such empathy, humor, pathos, "awkward elegance", intelligence and personal honesty. . .it is hard not to be attracted to his character.

I agree with all you wrote- my sentiments too.

By no means was he perfect, but I find that I am attracted to his imperfections . . . his searchings and windings and especially his courage in the quest after his true self.

I second what Brown wrote He had no faults, on the faulty side he was scarcely human. I think he meant that John was so courageous, acknowledging the faults of himself and humanity and his constant efforts for knowledge and belief in love.

John....you did not live to see-who we are because of what you left,what it is we are in what we make of you.Peter Sanson, 1995.

The comment on Keats being one of us, just better at words. He's more than that to me. He is a gift to us from whatever generating Spirit(s) any of us choose to believe in (or perhaps - rely upon). His soul is unique; he is not the same as the rest of us.

I know what you mean Ennis- remember the scene in Bright Star where Brown is standing by the fire eating (a scone I think it is) and he says with a tear in his eye and a wavering in his voice to John- "You are so far ahead of me and above me," and John blinks in astonishment and says "Brown...I'm amazed..." Because he doesn't realise how special he is.

John....you did not live to see-who we are because of what you left,what it is we are in what we make of you.Peter Sanson, 1995.

I didn't say he wasn't special, just that when it comes down to it, he was just flesh and blood like all of us are, and had human faults and failings, and that's what makes him human, makes him even more extraordinary, like all people touched by genius - they show us what each of us would wish to be, could be, they show the potential of human life, which we can all aspire to or admire in others, but there's nothing supernatural or divine about any one person in my opinion, we all have the potential for genius. I do not believe that anyone is any better than anyone else, we each are extraordinary in our own way; our individuality is what makes us as a species so diverse and so incredible.

Oh, Ennis -- I was joking! I'm one who often makes fat-fingered fumbles. I hope I didn't offend!

Malia & Saturn, he's not like a friend, he *is* a friend. Each of his letters, on some level, seems as though he sent it to me. I cherish each word of his wisdom, wit, advice and silly puns. I carry on conversations (albeit one-sided ones !) with him all the time. My husband is tolerant and supportive -- but bewildered by my devotion to guy who's been dead for a couple of centuries.

The poetry literally takes my breath away. ("as if the air is sucked out from my lungs") I think, "What is this kid doing in my head? And how did he get there?"

"The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists. The poet merely enjoys existence."Wallace Stevens

Saturn wrote:I didn't say he wasn't special, just that when it comes down to it, he was just flesh and blood like all of us are, and had human faults and failings, and that's what makes him human, makes him even more extraordinary, like all people touched by genius - they show us what each of us would wish to be, could be, they show the potential of human life, which we can all aspire to or admire in others, but there's nothing supernatural or divine about any one person in my opinion, we all have the potential for genius. I do not believe that anyone is any better than anyone else, we each are extraordinary in our own way; our individuality is what makes us as a species so diverse and so incredible.

All life is sacred Saturn, and his especially- as you say he showed us what humanity could really be. I agree with you to a certain extent...but...someone like John Keats is in a different class to the likes of Hitler. I don't think we are all the same- we are all of the same value- but some people are touched with genius or have special gifts- some are born with extraordinary compassion like Mother Teresa, some are ordinary like me.

John....you did not live to see-who we are because of what you left,what it is we are in what we make of you.Peter Sanson, 1995.

Cybele wrote:Oh, Ennis -- I was joking! I'm one who often makes fat-fingered fumbles. I hope I didn't offend!

Malia & Saturn, he's not like a friend, he *is* a friend. Each of his letters, on some level, seems as though he sent it to me. I cherish each word of his wisdom, wit, advice and silly puns. I carry on conversations (albeit one-sided ones !) with him all the time. My husband is tolerant and supportive -- but bewildered by my devotion to guy who's been dead for a couple of centuries.

The poetry literally takes my breath away. ("as if the air is sucked out from my lungs") I think, "What is this kid doing in my head? And how did he get there?"

Cybele --

You and I see more eye-to-eye than I had originally expected . . . The 'one-sided conversations", the tolerant husband (and, for me, my brother, as well!!)I WISH I was a time-traveler . . .

Saturn --

I have to agree with Raphael's "for example" analogy between Keats and Hitler (or that monster Joran Van der Sloot).

"But if you will fully love me, though there may be some fire, 'twill not be more than we can bear when moistened and bedewed with Pleasures." JK to FB 08.07.1819

I realize this topic petered out some time ago, but I thought I'd add my bit. I don't understand John's words to Benjamin Bailey, either, and I don't know Petrarch, but I think Aileen Ward helped shed a little light on the comment by putting it into context. When she described Keats' earlier stay with Bailey at Oxford, she talked about how fine the weather was and how the two young men would work all morning and then go out in the afternoons to walk or take a boat out on the Isis, talking all the while. She said they talked of a hundred things, including women, and one of the topics that "vexed these young idealists--innocent and helpless as they believed women to be--" was the question, "Why should Woman suffer?" It was a good time for Keats, a time of new ideas and books and companionship, and he was writing easily every day.

By the time of his letter to Bailey, six or seven months later, Keats was "ten thousand fathoms deep into gloom again." He had come back from Teignmouth with Tom, who was not getting better. George had told him of his plans to emigrate to America - "He did not know when he might lose Tom; but now, within a month, he would lose George--his first and in some ways still his closest friend." She suggests that George's approaching marriage was stirring up all Keats' old sexual anxieties. He had just discovered that his inheritance was dwindling faster than he had thought. A leading magazine had just printed "a slashing burlesque of a review" of Endymion, which "made the poem out to be both nonsensical and immoral." And in the May issue of Blackwood's Hunt had been ridiculed as "the King of the Cockneys," "surrounded by a court of would-be poets and crowned by 'the delicate hand of young Mister Keats--an amiable but infatuated bardling,'" referring to the laurel-crowning incident that had so embarrassed Keats.

To top all this off, Bailey had just published a "fulsome tribute" comparing Keats to Shakespeare and Milton, and embarrassing Keats further. So he "thanked" Bailey by telling him in the letter that he was "too simple for the world," and that the world was "malignant enough to chuckle at the most honorable simplicity." In other words, Keats was telling Bailey that Bailey had just given the world another reason to mock Keats. Then he added the comment about how he would reject a "petrarchal coronation--on account of my dying day, and because women have Cancers."

I still don't quite understand it, but the comment about women and cancers may have been just a way of expressing his feelings at the general malignancy of the world.